First, I apologize for the delayed response. Surprise events.
I didn't mean to imply that you and Isenberg were the same, except in this sense: for a decade you have both been arguing a cause. In that time, despite some advances, on the national scale Canada and the US have proven themselves incapable of seizing the advantages inherent in fiber.
In saying this, I'm mindful of past posts like those from ftth (the person) where surveys show that percentages of people don't care about, or wouldn't use say, 50 mbps symmetrical, or even asymetrical. I'll go even further: most people don't know or care what a packet header is. So if a decision is to be made - and I've posted repeatedly that for many reasons in North America, it won't - that decision will be made by the elites. That being the case, it's one example among many these days where elites have failed us, largely through deep capture.
"So even examples like Korea are not quite as they seem (frankston.com/?n=InternetDynamic)."
The distinctions made about South Korea and Japan are acknowledged, and anticipated in past discussions. In both cases, the decision at the political level was to work with the incumbents, so the nature of the outcome was to some extent predetermined. In South Korea, courts affirmed the decision to include a third incumbent, for reasons of increased competition. Jim Baller's proposition involved constructive engagement with incumbents, rather than wholesale change; as far as I'm concerned, that remains a viable approach, as opposed to doing very little.
The point: end-users in Japan and South Korea have received the highest aggregate throughput rates, at very reasonable cost. Do end-users care how they get it? No.
"The biggest danger is focusing on Broadband (rmf.vc/?n=BI) rather than creating opportunity."
Again, your point is well-taken, and throughly discussed here in past posts. We've discussed everything from "the economic construct" to "connectivity" at length.
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One critical fact that is continually avoided in such discussions is this: FTTH is financially unachievable without government assistance in one form or another. Nobody has the capital.
So let's be clear: No government involvement = no universal FTTH.
Another critical fact is that no reasonable person is proposing we should run a strand of fibre to every hermit on a mountain-top. Unlike South Korea and Japan with their high population densities, we have vast areas where more cost-effective throughput choices must be made. Nevertheless, Sweden shows us that it can be done, and done effectively.
Finally, we should recognize that with sufficient throughput many Net Neutrality issues become non-issues, as do many capacity-related traffic management problems.
Just one further point here, and it goes to the discussion in general - not to your comments.
We should be careful about loaded statements couched in ideological terms. It is NOT true that government "screws everything up". We're no longer in the Cold War, criticizing the latest Soviet 5-year plan. Globally, jurisdictionally, there's a rainbow range of political approaches to economics. More to the point, it is up to the people themselves to determine whether they want "high octane" economics, or are quite content with "regular". If the people (not some economic or ideological orthodoxy) choose one way or the other - that is their choice. What people choose is not dictated by economics. It is dictated by politics.
This reverts to previous discussions about the economic construct, and the outrageously insupportable statement that we live in a "free market" economy. In fact, no such thing exists anywhere on this planet.
There are many ways by which individual nations can game their approach to different areas of the economic picture - even to the extent of actually discouraging (while publicly encouraging) growth of a particular phenomenon or industry. We see this in pharmaceuticals, in agriculture, in every aspect of commerce. There's a whole web of subsurface technicalities that can be judiciously arranged to discourage whole industries or countries. These include local and federal taxation (which may be at odds), carefully-worded specific legislation, blanket trade barriers, subsidization, stimulus (which can in reality be favorable tax treatment) and so on.
But logically, it follows: if we can use economics and finance to discourage, we can also use them to encourage. That is what governments have done - admittedly with failures, but also with great successes.
Minus the ideology, capitalism has two essential components:
[1] Competition
[2] The Profit Motive
This has been recognized by non-democratic socialist "command economies" such as China, or democracies such as South Korea and Japan. It's recognized in Sweden (far more socialist than Canada or the US) but also with high aggregate throughput - and, it should be added, profitable incumbents.
The point: this isn't a question of politics or technology. It's simply a matter of choice, and the courage to choose. Whether we choose to engage the incumbents, or create a new model is relatively unimportant: we can go either way and achieve a result both satisfactory to end-users and by external measurement, high in aggregate throughput and QOS. We know we can set up the economics to predispose success in whatever we choose.
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In North America, we have refused to make the choice, and probably (for reasons discussed previously and at length) will continue to do so. That leaves us with Frank's alternative, which is erosion and evolution.
That's fine; no choice means status quo by inaction, even as we watch others choose and act. However, it makes discussions such as this equivalent to commentary on glacial movement. The possibilities envisioned by you and many other fine commentators may very well become reality - but not in our lifetime.
Regards,
Jim |
